Why there are two users showing in uptime command results?

37

8

When I ran the uptime on my MacBookPro machine I got the following result:

Last login: Thu Jun  3 14:43:40 on ttys000
Osama-Gamal-MBP-2:~ iOsama$ uptime
14:49  up 7 days, 20:10, 2 users, load averages: 0.29 0.24 0.24

Why it lists that there are two users? is it normal? and who is the other user, is it the root user or what?

PS: I'm using Mac OS X 10.6.3 Edit: w command output:

Osama-Gamal-MBP-2:~ iOsama$ w
 0:41  up 8 days,  6:03, 2 users, load averages: 1.92 1.81 1.38
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
iOsama   console  -                26May10 8days -
iOsama   s000     -                 0:13       - w

who command output:

Osama-Gamal-MBP-2:~ iOsama$ who
iOsama   console  May 26 18:40 
iOsama   ttys000  Jun  4 00:13

Osama Gamal

Posted 2010-06-03T11:53:33.537

Reputation: 887

1Can you post the output of who ? – Dentrasi – 2010-06-03T12:06:27.497

And/or last..? – T.J. Crowder – 2010-06-03T12:07:02.597

added to the question – Osama Gamal – 2010-06-03T21:42:55.810

Answers

47

Try the w command. On my system I have the following:

# w
 02:16:53 up  6:48,  2 users,  load average: 0.50, 0.42, 0.52
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
pcm      tty7     :0               19:28    6:48m 16:07   0.17s gnome-session
pcm      pts/0    :0.0             01:51    0.00s  0.36s  0.76s gnome-terminal
# uptime
 02:16:56 up  6:48,  2 users,  load average: 0.50, 0.42, 0.52

tty7 is your desktop login, pts/0 is a pseudo terminal ... probably what was used to type uptime in.

Why it lists that there are two users?

Because it shows every logged in session. A single user can have multiple active sessions at any one time.

is it normal?

100% normal ... A-OK

and who is the other user, is it the root user or what?

The other user is yourself. You have multiple sessions running. You can see in your output from your question, that the user name is the same for both sessions.

cmcginty

Posted 2010-06-03T11:53:33.537

Reputation: 2 249

Added to the question – Osama Gamal – 2010-06-03T21:43:12.143

Is something missing from this answer? – cmcginty – 2010-06-04T00:02:45.710

3I have multiple Terminal.App windows open on my workstation. uptime says there are 8 users on my system, but each of them is tied to one of my Terminal sessions : 17:08 up 8:42, 8 users, load averages: 0.68 0.60 0.58 – Stefan Lasiewski – 2010-06-04T00:09:41.560

Nope nothing missing .. seems that Stefan said .. it is linked with the number of terminals ..

I opened multiple terminal tabs and checked the uptime found out 5 users!! – Osama Gamal – 2010-06-04T00:31:02.163

1"Stefan said" ... ?? uh ya, that is exactly what is in the answer – cmcginty – 2010-06-04T05:54:39.020

There can be other users too like _mbsetupuser, who appears between an update and rebooting to complete the update. – J.Money – 2017-10-31T21:21:34.837

Asked: 2010-06-03T11:53:33.537

Viewed: 23 430 times

Active: 2019-01-29T20:15:05.587